NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs faces sentencing Friday in a sordid criminal case that could keep him locked up for years.

The hip-hop mogul was convicted in July of flying people around the country for sexual encounters, including his girlfriends and male sex workers, in violation of the federal Mann Act.

A jury acquitted Combs, 55, of more serious racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges that could have put him away for life.

Prosecutors say he should spend more than 11 years in prison for his conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs’ lawyers want him freed now, saying the long sentence sought by prosecutors is “wildly out of proportion” to the crime.

U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who will decide the sentence, has signaled that Combs is unlikely to be freed soon. He twice rejected bail for the rapper, who has been jailed at a federal detention center in Brooklyn since his arrest a year ago.

The sentencing comes after a nearly two-month trial featuring testimony from women who described being beaten, threatened, sexually assaulted and blackmailed by Combs.

A former girlfriend, R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, said Combs ordered her to have “disgusting” sex with strangers hundreds of times during their decade-long relationship.

The jury was repeatedly shown video clips of Combs dragging and beating Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway after one of those multiday sexual marathons, which she referred to as “freak-offs” during her four days of testimony.

A woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” told jurors she too was subjected to violence and felt obligated to perform sexually with male sex workers at drug-fueled “hotel nights” while Combs watched and sometimes filmed.

To support their racketeering case, prosecutors also brought on witnesses who testified about other violent acts. A former personal assistant testified that Combs raped her. One of Cassie’s friends told the jury Combs dangled her from a 17th floor balcony. The rapper Kid Cudi testified that Combs broke into his home after learning he and Cassie were dating.

Although the jury acquitted Combs of racketeering, the judge can still consider that testimony as he decides the sentence.

Subramanian is also considering letters submitted by Combs and some of his accusers.

In his letter to the judge Thursday, Combs promised he would never commit another crime if released, saying, “The old me died in jail and a new version of me was reborn.”

In her letter, Cassie called Combs a manipulative abuser who has “no interest in changing or becoming better.”

“He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is,” she wrote.

A former personal assistant who said Combs raped her in 2010 asked Subramanian to deliver a sentence “that takes into account the ongoing danger my abuser poses to me, and to others.” The former assistant, who testified under the pseudonym “Mia,” is expected to speak at Friday’s sentencing.

Combs will address the court, according to court filings. His defense team is also planning to play a roughly 11-minute video.

Combs’ lawyers say the sexual encounters were consensual and that being in jail has hastened Combs’ sobriety and forced him to learn from his misbehavior. They have said there is no need for him to remain behind bars because he has already been punished enough.

At a court hearing last week, Combs seemed buoyant, as he told his mother and children that he is “getting closer to going home.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — If a U.S. government shutdown goes on long enough, it could throw a wrench in travel plans, potentially leading to longer airport wait times, flight delays and even cancellations.

The shutdown began Wednesday after President Donald Trump and Congress failed to reach a deal to continue funding government services and operations. That means a vast majority of employees who keep U.S. airports and air travel running are working without pay until the government reopens.

“The longer a shutdown drags on, the more likely we are to see longer TSA lines, flight delays and cancellations, national parks in disrepair and unnecessary delays in modernizing travel infrastructure,” Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, warned in a statement.

Here’s what to know about the shutdown and its potential impacts on your travel plans.

Flying during a shutdown

Travelers can still fly despite the lapse in funding, and early on in the shutdown, they might not even notice any issues at the airport.

Control towers and airport security checkpoints will still be staffed, with about 13,200 air traffic controllers and more than 61,000 Transportation Security Administration employees expected to remain on the job.

But as more time passes for the workers since their last paycheck, travelers could start to see longer lines at security and flight interruptions, said Jeffrey Price, professor of aviation at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“The system does become a little bit more brittle, and the longer this goes, the more the traveler is going to notice it,” Price said.

That’s what happened in 2018 and 2019, when Trump led the country into its longest shutdown ever for 35 days during his first term.

About three weeks into that shutdown, some unpaid security screeners started calling in sick, and air traffic controllers sued the government in a bid to get their paychecks. Miami International Airport had to temporarily close one of its terminals because TSA officers were calling in sick at twice the airport’s usual rate.

The latest shutdown is unfolding at a time when both the TSA and the Federal Aviation Administration are already facing staffing shortages, including a shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers.

If the system can’t handle the number of flights that are scheduled, the FAA will slow down landings and take offs and passengers will see more delays and cancellations.

Safety at airports and in the air

Nick Daniels, president of the union that represents air traffic controllers, said a shutdown weakens the aviation safety system by adding stress on controllers and taking away many of the workers who support them and maintain the outdated system they rely on.

“They’re out there working right now with critical staffing — the lowest staffing we’ve had in decades of only 10,800, where there should be 14,633. And on top of that, they’re working with unreliable equipment,” Daniels said.

During the 35-day shutdown during Trump’s first term, controllers in the busiest U.S. air traffic facilities reported working as much as 60 hours per week, and an increasing number of TSA agents also quit their jobs.

“This is more than just an inconvenience to the traveler,” Price said of the shutdown. “This is definitely going to bring up safety and security issues, if it really starts to go into the long term.”

Travel by train

Amtrak says its passengers trains will continue running. It operates more than 300 trains daily in 46 states, the D.C. area and three Canadian provinces.

In a statement, the country’s rail operator said that passengers planning to travel on its trains “in the coming days and weeks can be assured that Amtrak will remain open for business.”

International travel into the U.S.

Ports of entry into the country are expected to stay open for international travelers, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s contingency plan.

The department estimated that about 63,000 workers at Customs and Border Protection would still report to work. They include employees who are responsible for protecting the country’s borders and monitoring traffic coming into the U.S. at official border crossings, like airports and land crossings from Canada and Mexico.

Passports and visas

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for overseeing the naturalization process, is primarily funded by application fees, meaning a lapse in funding at the federal government has minimal impacts on most passport and visa processing.

Agency spokesperson Matthew Tragesser said in a statement, however, that the shutdown does temporarily shutter the agency’s E-Verify program, a free online system that employers can use to confirm their new employees are authorized to work in the U.S.

Museums and national parks

Smithsonian museums, research centers and the National Zoo were scheduled to stay open to the public through at least Oct. 6. Further updates will be posted on the Smithsonian website.

The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum complex, with 17 museums and its zoo located in the Washington, D.C. area, as well as two museums in New York City.

National Parks will remain mostly open during the shutdown.

The National Park Service’s contingency plan says park roads, lookouts, trails and open-air memorials will “generally remain accessible to visitors.” But parks without ”accessible areas” will be closed, and additional sites could shutter if damage is done to park resources or garbage builds up during the shutdown.

The park service oversees 400 sites, including large national parks such as Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, national battlefields and national monuments like the Statue of Liberty.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a near certain path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday for the first time in nearly seven years.

The Senate rejected the legislation as Democrats are making good on their threat to close the government if President Donald Trump and Republicans won’t accede to their health care demands. The 55-45 vote on a bill to extend federal funding for seven weeks fell short of the 60 needed to end a filibuster and pass the legislation.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are trying to “bully” Democrats by refusing to negotiate on an extension of expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire at the end of the year.

“We hope they sit down with us and talk,” Schumer said after the vote. “Otherwise, it’s the Republicans will be driving us straight towards a shutdown tonight at midnight. The American people will blame them for bringing the federal government to a halt.”

The failure of Congress to keep the government open means that hundreds of thousands of federal workers could be furloughed or laid off. After the vote, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo saying “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.”

Threatening retribution to Democrats, Trump said Tuesday that a shutdown could include “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

Trump and his fellow Republicans said they won’t entertain any changes to the legislation, arguing that it’s a stripped-down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “we can reopen it tomorrow” if enough Democrats break party lines.

The last shutdown was in Trump’s first term, from December 2018 to January 2019, when he demanded that Congress give him money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. Trump retreated after 35 days — the longest shutdown ever — amid intensifying airport delays and missed paydays for federal workers.

Democrats take a stand against Trump, with exceptions

While partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats see a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate needed at least eight votes from Democrats after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky opposed the bill.

Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine voted with Republicans to keep the government open — giving Republicans hope that there might be five more who will eventually come around and help end a shutdown.

After the vote, King warned against “permanent damage” as Trump and his administration have threatened mass layoffs.

“Instead of fighting Trump we’re actually empowering him, which is what finally drove my decision,” King said.

Thune predicted Democratic support for the GOP bill will increase “when they realize that this is playing a losing hand.”

Shutdown preparations begin

The stakes are huge for federal workers across the country as the White House told agencies last week that they should consider “a reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government shuts down. That means that workers who are not deemed essential could be fired instead of just furloughed.

Either way, most would not get paid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in a letter to Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst on Tuesday that around 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day once a shutdown begins.

Federal agencies were already preparing. On the home page of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a large pop up ad reads, “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people.”

Democrats’ health care asks

Democrats want to negotiate an extension of the health subsidies immediately as people are beginning to receive notices of premium increases for the next year. Millions of people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act could face higher costs as expanded subsidies first put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic expire.

Democrats have also demanded that Republicans reverse the Medicaid cuts that were enacted as a part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” this summer and for the White House to promise it will not move to rescind spending passed by Congress.

“We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

Thune pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but many are strongly opposed to it.

In rare, pointed back-and-forth with Schumer on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, Thune said Republicans “are happy to fix the ACA issue” and have offered to negotiate with Democrats — if they will vote to keep the government open until Nov. 21.

A critical, and unusual, vote for Democrats

Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it’s unclear how or when a shutdown will end. But party activists and lawmakers have argued that Democrats need to do something to stand up to Trump.

“The level of appeasement that Trump demands never ends,” said Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “We’ve seen that with universities, with law firms, with prosecutors. So is there a point where you just have to stand up to him? I think there is.”

Some groups called for Schumer’s resignation in March after he and nine other Democrats voted to break a filibuster and allow a Republican-led funding bill to advance to a final vote.

Schumer said then that he voted to keep the government open because a shutdown would have made things worse as Trump’s administration was slashing government jobs. He says things have now changed, including the passage this summer of the massive GOP tax cut bill that reduced Medicaid.

Trump’s role in negotiations

A bipartisan meeting at the White House on Monday was Trump’s first with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term. Schumer said the group “had candid, frank discussions” about health care.

But Trump did not appear to be ready for serious talks. Hours later, he posted a fake video of Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries taken from footage of their real press conference outside of the White House after the meeting. In the altered video, a voiceover that sounds like Schumer’s voice makes fun of Democrats and Jeffries stands beside him with a cartoon sombrero and mustache. Mexican music plays in the background.

At a news conference on the Capitol steps Tuesday morning, Jeffries said it was a “racist and fake AI video.”

Schumer said that less than a day before a shutdown, Trump was trolling on the internet “like a 10-year-old.”

“It’s only the president who can do this,” Schumer said. “We know he runs the show here.”